Wednesday, March 30, 2011

As promised here are (finally) some pictures of lovely BESTA storage from Ikea on our dining room wall.

We love how it turned out and even though it still looks bare it has soooo much potential. We got the white high gloss doors for everything and threw in some glass to break it up a little. Our kitchen island uses the same high gloss finish so it ties in nicely. We also varied the heights to give it more visual interest. There are two drawers and everything else is just a door. As you can see it came with a lot of extra shelves which I haven't all put in yet. Gotta figure out what to put in there first. BESTA is not the cheapest solution, especially not when you go with the high gloss or glass doors but there are tons of color options and even glass doors that you can add your own fabric panels to. The hubby managed to hang all the cabinets by himself I only had to make marks for him. I put together all the drawers and hardware on the doors. Definitely no fun when you're 32 weeks preggers.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Well, I wrote this nice little post about the dining room storage and I can't add any pictures. I've been having problems with blogger for maybe 2 weeks now. It's been awfully slow when uploading pictures and now it has come to the point where I can't upload anything. I also can't upload to Photobucket or my email anymore so I don't know what's going on but it may be a bigger problem. I have even tried using a different computer and it's the same. I cleaned out the cache and the cookies but it hasn't changed anything... So much time wasted today in order to figure this out and I am at the point now where I'll just have to let it go for today. So sorry there are no pics, hopefully I can get it taken care of.

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Hey everyone, today I am being featured by Jessie over at Imperfectly Polished. She is also offering a coupon code for 20% off your purchase at my Etsy shop so hop on over there, grab that code and leave her some comment love :)

I also told you guys I was going to post about a free goodie bag I got from Target the other day. Well here it is...

They have unfortunately run out of free bags since I ordered it but I still think it's pretty nice for just answering 5 quick questions about my beauty shopping habits. The bag is so cute and the free Neutrogena lip balm alone is worth it. It also took less than 2 weeks to get here which is pretty fast considering they said it may take up to 8 weeks.

I heard about this through Amber at Dragonfly Sweetnest blog so go on over there and check out some of the great deals and coupons she provides you with. Thanks Amber :)

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Wow, did we have a change of plans today! I was editing pictures to write this post when my husband calls me to let me know my neighbor and friend had to go to the hospital (she has heart issues and it's pretty bad), straight from work and her husband who is staying home with their 8 months old baby was asking if I could watch her. We have watched her numerous times and she is one precious little girl. My heart breaks for them each time her mom has to go to the hospital with yet another heart related issue. So of course I went next door so that he could go to the hospital. The hubs was running some errands and then joined me and we played and fed her. We ended up coming back over here with the little one since we don't know when and if they'll be back yet. I just put her down in our little man's crib and she had a hard time falling asleep :( She kept waking up and crying a little just to go back to sleep 10 seconds later. It's hard just to sit there and watch and try to comfort her without picking her back up out of the crib. This has seriously been such good practice for the both of us. I wish her mom weren't so sick, but watching her so much has given us so much good experience taking care of an infant. I am hoping and praying that her mommy will be back home soon.

So now that I have a little free time I am finally going to upload those pictures I promised you all.

Here is the nursery, still in progress, but now with some more shelving and the frames hung on the wall. I love my handyman hubby :) The shelving is from Ikea. The frames are from Target. The artwork in the frames is by Katie Daisy (love her). The mural is painted by me (more here). The animal print pillow is made by me, the other two I bought at TJ Maxx. The bear is from Pottery Bran Kids. Quilt is also made by me. The tiger print bear on the shelf is a children's book character from my childhood. If you're interested you can find out more about the author Janosch here. I also managed to get a brand new Baby Bjorn carrier at the consignment sale last weekend for only $25!!! Such a great deal :)

Today the lovely Natalia over at Ma Nouvelle Mode is doing a feature on my blog and Etsy shop :)

You should totally hop on over there and grab yourself her lovely 20% off coupon code.

While you're there make sure to leave her some comment love and follow that lovely blog of hers. She currently lives in France!!! How cool is that?

In other news, the hubby and I watched a really great documentary last night called - Waiting for "Superman" It's all about how the US public school system is broken and focuses on the Washington D.C. area, as well as other bigger cities. When I saw the preview for it a couple of weeks ago it really touched my heart and I am so glad we watched it. Kids should not have to enter into a lottery to get a spot at a school that can provide them with a chance to get a college education down the road! So if you are interested in learning more about what's wrong with our school system then you should really watch this film. You can order it from Netflix (long wait) or get it from a Redbox (like we did).

After watching the documentary we also worked on installing some shelves in the nursery and I finally hemmed the curtains ;) I will post some more on that later and get some pictures up.

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Sorry my lovely readers for being absent and ignoring this blog for a couple of days. The hubby was gone for a few days on a business trip and so we had to make up for some lost cuddle time ;) I should be used to him being gone a lot but since it's only during baseball season it is hard to get back into the awful grind. So we spent Sunday night cuddling on the couch with a movie and yesterday we went out to Ikea to shop for some furniture for our dining room and the nursery. We moved into this house almost 3 years ago but still have so many bare walls and things that need finished or already fixed again. We also had an early dinner at IHOP ;) yes, we love us some breakfast for dinner...

So today I will be busy helping the hubs put most of this stuff together. We are hanging shelving units on the wall but Ikea didn't have the suspension rails that are needed. So for now we will put everything together and since the hubs is leaving on business again soon, the hanging part will have to wait until next week. Sorry there aren't any pictures today, I will make it up to you, I promise :)

Saturday, March 19, 2011

Today I am going to a consignment sale for baby and kids stuff with my neighbor and friend. I remember going to these kinds of sales with my mom back when I was little. She volunteered there and we were always allowed to get the first pick on items the night before the sale started. This sale is several days long and seems to be pretty huge. My neighbor just had her first child last July so we both will be looking for some good deals. My baby shower is coming up in April so I am going to have to pace myself a little ;)

So since I won't be here today I will leave you with what I made for dinner last night. It's called Hawaiian Toast and it is something my mom made a lot when me and my brothers were little. It is the equivalent to a US kid's grilled cheese. So easy and yummy, you will love it.

I had fresh pineapple on hand but you can just get a can. I love using our pineapple corer that I got from WMF in Germany before I moved here. It makes cutting up pineapple a breeze.

It removes the core and leaves you with a perfect pineapple spiral :)

Then, for the Hawaiian Toast all you need is bread that you butter lightly on both sides, some sort of lunch meat like ham, turkey or hard salami, some cheese (I like swiss) and of course pineapple slices.

Simply layer the meat and pineapple and top it off with your cheese. Then put it in the oven at around 350 degrees until the cheese has melted. Voila!

Serve it with some ketchup or any other sauce of your liking. It is so easy to make and perfect when you don't really feel like cooking a meal. If you try this let me know how you liked it or even link back your post.

I knew for a while that wanted to put trees on the wall and I think it definitely suits a boys room. I looked at some of these wall decals that seem to be everywhere right now, but couldn't get myself to actually pay that much money for something I feel skilled enough to do on my own.

However, I still had a little bit of hesitation due to the size of the project and was worried about being able to achieve the right scale without the help of a projector. I looked around for a cheap art projector but again couldn't get myself to spend money on that either ;) WoW I didn't realize how frugal I can be! So I ended up just free-handing the entire thing.

I guess the worst that could have happened is that I would have had to repaint the wall. The worst did not happen :)

I actually really love how it turned out and its whimsical qualities as opposed to a more bold, graphic look of the decals. It only took me a little more than an hour to do so I wasn't completely exhausted afterwards either ;) Some of you ladies out there probably know how exhausting just a little bit of physical activity can be when you're almost 31 weeks pregnant...

I am happy with the way it looks but I may still add in some birds or leaves. We have a bunch of picture frames to hang and I want to put up shelving. So again, it is not done but we are one step closer :)

If you want to give this a shot all you need is some left-over paint and a few different sized paint brushes. The darker the wall the bolder your trees are going to look. Obviously, if you have a very light wall you may want to use darker paint. Do any of you have murals or decals on your walls? I would love to see them so feel free to leave a link in the comments section.

Also, I am still looking for more bloggers who would like to join the blogger rewards program. For more info just click here :)

Hope you are all having a wonderful Tuesday, we have our last childbirth class tonight, yay!

Saturday, March 12, 2011

So I am finally settling back in at home and unfortunately there is a ton of stuff to do, like cleaning and laundry and cooking instead of going out for lunch and dinner ;) Florida was a blast and I wish I didn't have to come back to freezing temperatures and snow... The hubby gets to go back already on Thursday so I guess the puppies and I will be spending a lonely weekend together. Can you hear the violins playing? ;)Even though he had to work a lot, hubby made sure I was taken care of and even brought me food to the room. He's great like that :) He also does this when we're home, this morning he chopped up some pineapple for me and brought it up so I didn't even have to get out of bed. Do you guys have awesome hubbies or boyfriends like that? What do they do for you?

The good thing about being back home is that I can finally keep up with writing regular blog posts again so you guys should be totally excited about that. Look at you all doing your little happy dances :) I also have some give-aways coming up soon so I'll be posting more about that in the near future. For now I am going to leave you with some pictures from the trip. Enjoy ;)

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

I am still alive ;) just been a little busy enjoying myself on a little trip with lots of sunshine. The hubby had a business trip to go on and so I came with him and enjoyed the sunshine and warm weather. So sorry I've been ignoring you all, maybe these pics will make up for my absence and I promise to be better ;) Here is what I wore to one of the hubbys work events. Kind of hard to dress up when you're about 30 weeks pregnant but again, I managed with non-maternity clothes ;)

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Today was the day ;) Melvin got a long needed haircut and he did so well. He is a Yorkiepoo and doesn't shed. However, his hair grows and grows and gets all curly which looks cute but also kinda ratty after a while. So since it's warming up outside I decided it was finally time for him to shed a layer or two... Soon after we got him as a pup we took him to Petsmart for a grooming. I think it was maybe $25 and so we took him back there the next time and it ended up costing $40!!! Because he was over 6 months old and they didn't consider him a puppy anymore. My puppy only weighs like 8 lbs and $40 is so not appropriate. So ever since then I have been grooming him myself. He used to hate it, try and bite the scissors, walk away, cry etc... now he is perfectly used to it :)

I'm using the other computer so I don't have a before picture but if you go to this post you can get an idea.

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